The Golden Key. 

Reon's pupils dropped back into her eyes. But she was not looking straight, all of the strength left her body and she fell down on the floor.

Hitori heard the sound of lights lighting up with the sound of Reon's fall. The whole mansion was lit up with lights which revealed the mansion's true colors.

Hitori lifted his head and took a glance around the mansion. The chandelier shone brightly above his head which blinded him, he quickly brought his eyes back down to the broken wooden floor.

Reon was lying in the pit of dust with multiple pieces of glasses lying around her. The wooden plates were coming off, the floor was covered with holes of all sizes.

[Quest cleared]

[level up!]

[Aquired:

+150 gems…] the list continued.

Hitori took a step forward and leaned down near Reon, without touching her, he pulled out a bottle of spirit potion and forced it down her throat.

He then got up and glance around the mansion once again. He saw the rooms on the first and second floor, a few of them were locked and a few of them were opened wide by Hitori and Reon.

His eyes fell on the damaged walls with lights on them and a few hanging down with the electric wires barely holding them.

Lots of pieces of glass were spread across the hall, the main railing had half broken glasses still hanging by thread, the long and wide staircase from were a few stairs were absent.

He did not find a single window in his sight. Thankfully, Hitori was inside a game, if this were to be a reality then he would be choking right now because of the low oxygen level there.

Cough, cough.

He heard feminine coughs behind him which made him turn around instantly. Reon was sitting on her butt, on the wooden floor.

She, too, took a glance around the mansion. The furniture around her was in a pretty bad condition. She moved her eyes to Hitori.

"Seriously," she coughed again, "I, seriously hate ghosts," she rolled her eyes while looking at Hitori.

She patted her clothes clean after getting off the floor, "nice mansion… is not it?" Hitori muttered to her while glancing around.

"Of course," she rolled her eyes once again, "but…" the irritated frown faded, "how did you manage to discover the secret to kill the ghost and complete the quest?"

Hitori glanced at her once before bending down to the floor. His hands threw the glass pieces away and grabbed a big golden color key.

"Experience," he muttered his answer, "there is a limit to the creators' imagination… after playing for nine years, most of the things have become a cliche for me," he replied while he started examining the key.

"This is… cliche?" she moved her chin down.

"It is not the top-level lair of this game, moreover, it is above low-level lair, not even average,"

"So?" she asked further.

"So, the creator of this game did not work out his brains while creating a mansion where a ghost takes possession over anyone who looks at the black mirror."

She was left speechless. She looked down and glanced around, finding a topic to change the subject of communication, "b- by the way," Hitori took a step forward, "were not you scared of the monster? I saw it coming at me through the mirror and I was pretty scared till it entered my soul."

Hitori turned around, "no," shook his head, and turned his head back to the key, "your glare is way scarier," he remembered the moment she caught him staring at her.

Reon pulled a plain cold expression on her face, "Yeah, right," rolled her eyes for the nth time, and folded her arms in front of her chest.

Hitori did not respond to her, his eyes were currently fixed on the key he held in his hands. After a few seconds of silence, Reon let go of her anger and walked closer to Hitori.

"Ryu-san, that key…" her eyes fell on the key Hitori had obtained from smashing the mirror.

"Leads to ONE of the rooms in the mansion or… rooms," Hitori replied her before she could even ask her question.

Reon started nodding her head, "wait, do not tell me," there were tens of rooms in the mansion, "you do not plan on opening every single room!" She exclaimed as she took a step back.

A grin appeared on Hitori's face, he pulled his eyes at Reon, "no, only the rooms with treasures."

"'Only the rooms with treasures' you said but here you are, opening every door you see," they both were walking down the first floor's hallway when Reon started taunting Hitori.

He inserted the key into another door and twisted it open, "this indeed is wasting too much time but… I believe…"

"What?" she asked when Hitori had stopped in between.

"That," he lifted his finger and pointed at a shiny item sitting in the middle of the room he had just opened.

"An item? You believe you would find an item?" she rolled her eyes once again.

"Not just an item, it is a bundle of silver stakes,"

Once again, her annoyed expression faded, "to kill ghosts?" Hitori looked at her, gave her a smile, and nodded.

"Would you mind collecting the items?" he turned around and walked away from the room, "we will have to hurry up our search," he went to the other doors on the first floor.

After opening one more room on the first floor, Hitori headed for the second floor. He found a pair of ghost's agility shoes which were better than his previous agility shoes.

He opened more than four rooms on the second floor and discovered a full body armor level seventeen. And… an invisible storage item named 'The Ghostly Dimension'. He entered a room and was greeted with the message of equipping a piece of high-level storage equipment.

Reon reached the second floor and collected the remaining items while Hitori still searched for a secret hidden place, he found none.

"So a few hundred mana gems," Reon started, "lab goggles, five silver stakes, a chemical set, and…"

"... a parang," Hitori's eye twitched when he saw that they have acquired a parang.

"Yeah," she sighed, "I know less combat but I know that in this world, a parang is the most useless weapon," Hitori nodded in agreement.

"What else have you got?"

"A few potions of different categories. Heal, mana recovery, and stamina."

"We will be needing them," the duo had walked down to the main. They turned around to the backside where a portal was waiting for them.

"The last checkpoint now… we need to really hurry up," Hitori saw on the map that the three players had already made their way to the end of the left path.

"I just hope we do not have to face Annabelle or something now," Reon rolled her eyes as she followed Ryu out of the mansion.

The strong wind blew and made the leaves crash with each other. Hitori and Reon appeared in the middle of the green woods with greenery behind, above, beneath, and in front of them.

"A forest? So no Annabelle," Reon sighed. But if they were in the forest… it meant something worse awaited them.

Hitori equipped himself with his katana, a thick layer of ice formed on the katana. He heard the leaves rustle and spotted a movement in the deep woods.

"Stay… alert-" he stopped when a message flashed.

..

…

Will Be Continued…!